


'cause i've had the time of my life, and i owe it all to you

by bodhirookes



Category: teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complete, Fluff, M/M, a surplus of Dirty Dancing jokes sorry I couldn't help myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodhirookes/pseuds/bodhirookes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles needs to learn how to dance for Scott and Isaac's wedding, so he enrolls himself in some ballroom dance lessons. Derek is his dance instructor, who thinks Stiles is a completely hopeless case, thanks to his habit of tripping over everything and nothing. But with his help and Boyd's dapper enthusiasm, he gets it down eventually. </p><p>Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'cause i've had the time of my life, and i owe it all to you

**Author's Note:**

> This is horridly cliche and it only highlights my obsession with the eighties even more, so sorry. I'm an idiot. 
> 
> Title is from the song Time Of My Life by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (n˘v˘•)¬

Stiles finds out that Scott and Isaac are engaged the way no best friend wants to:

On his own.

He's at the grocery store, picking up some food to make dinner that night for himself and Lydia, something they'd planned out a week ago, when he goes down the spice aisle and runs into Isaac. They grin wildly at each other, and ask what the other's trying to find and make, when Isaac reaches up for some thyme and Stiles' entire heart gives out.

There, on Isaac's left-handed appointed finger, is a ring. A simple silver band that winks at Stiles in the florescent lighting of the store, and it practically  _screams_ that Scott forgot to clue him in on such a large milestone in his life.

Quicker than lightning, Stiles whips out his phone and holding Isaac's hand close to face, he examines it while the phone rings.

 _"Hey, Stiles!"_ Scott chirps through on the third ring.

"Don't 'Hey Stiles' me, you little shit." Stiles hisses. "I just ran into Isaac at the store, Scott."

 _"Okay?"_  Scott sounds a little uncertain and Stiles wants to smack him over the head with the jar of tomato sauce in his cart.

"You proposed to him, you moron! When were you going to tell me, huh? Next week? Next month? Never? Maybe on the day of your wedding, saying 'Oh by the way Isaac and I are getting married in two hours, think you could pick a tux up and meet us at the church in awhile? I need a best man."

_"Um-"_

Stiles doesn't even let Scott get a word in edgewise, and now Isaac looks like a kicked puppy who got caught eating the cat food. "Oh,  _wait_! I wouldn't be your best man because you never  _fucking told me you proposed to Isaac_. What the hell, man?"

 _"I was going to tell you,"_  Scott tries to redeem himself _. "when we came over for dinner next week."_

"Bullshit." He marvels at how expensive the naked band must have cost. "You should have called me the second you two got done having celebratory sex."

A woman next to them gives Stiles a wild look and drops a bottle of pepper on the ground, but Stiles just ignores her.

_"I'm sorry, Stiles, really. I just forgot, you know?"_

Stiles finally lets Isaac take his hand back, and he does, clutching it close to his chest and rubbing his long fingers over the band protectively. Stiles rolls his eyes at Isaac's melodrama.

"Whatever, loser. Just come over next week like you said so I can hear the story myself."

Stiles can hear Scott sigh in relief through the phone and smiles to himself, because even though they're grown men, they're still best friends who co-depend on each other. If one's upset with the other, the one who's in the dog house feels like shit until the other forgives him.

After saying their goodbyes, Stiles hangs up and turns to look at Isaac.

"Congratulations, jackass."

Isaac laughs and they hug, right there in the spice aisle while a mother and her two sons roll by and look at them strangely.

"Also, tell Scott that this time when you two tell me the whole story to leave out the sex part. Thanks."

_**xXxXxXx** _

They're eating dinner, Scott and Isaac just having finished their engagement story, when Scott tells Stiles that he wants his best friend to learn how to dance.

Choking on his taco, a spare piece of lettuce gets trapped in his throat and he coughs horribly on it until Isaac shoves a glass of water at him and Stiles all but downs it.

"Dance?" he says with a gruff voice. "Scott, you're kidding."

"I'm not."

"I can't dance, dude!" Stiles yells. "Remember prom senior year? I tripped while trying to dance to the Cupid Shuffle and ripped Quinn Fenska's dress off. She flashed the entire damn gymnasium and her boyfriend threw shrimp at me until I escaped to the bathroom."

Isaac snorts not-discreetly into his Diet Coke while Scott's face lights up, and at that moment Stiles hates them both. A lot.

"That's why I want you to go to dance lessons, Stiles. You can go at least once a week, right? Tuesday nights after work? I'd even pay for them if you wanted me to."

Scott looks so hopeful that Stiles has to bite his lip to stop from saying 'Okay, fine.' at once.

"B-but...  _Why_? What's the point of me learning how to dance? I'm just going to be your best man, right? I don't need to dance."

"Yes you do." Scott says with finality, and seals the deal by taking a bite of his burrito.

Stiles sees that its a moot point to try and argue and taking another moody bite of his taco, he frowns at his best friend and his best friend's fricking fiance from across the table.

"Fine. But when I show up to your wedding and still can't dance I'm allowed to say 'I told you so.'"

Scott grins at him and even goes as far as to cross to Stiles and wrap him in up a huge hug, which Stiles returns grudgingly after a moment of the familiar warmth.

Isaac still looks amused. "That was the best dance ever."

"Shut up." Stiles sticks his tongue out at him. "I'm still going to be terrible."

"How do you know?"

"Because I do." Stiles insists. "Just like how I knew you were gay the first time I saw you."

Isaac looks faintly surprised. "How?"

"You were wearing a purple scarf."

"Okay..."

"Stylishly."

_**xXxXxXx** _

The moment Stiles walks into the ballroom gleaming with gold and fashionable decor on the walls, he wants to walk right back out and pretend he never entered. It smells like floor polish and flowers, and everyone walking around looks graceful and beautiful. They're the peacocks at a masquerade ball and Stiles feels like the Ugly Duckling, shaking inside of his own shoes. Which are high top Converse, and everyone there is either wearing ballet shoes or none at all, clad only in socks or foot wrappings.

He's also the one who's remotely dressed. He's wearing a black sweater and jeans, while the female dance instructors are wearing unitards, and the single male instructor is wearing a grey t-shirt and what look like leggings made for men.

He's wearing the most clothing but he feels the most naked.

"Ah, another arrival!" one of the ladies says sweetly, and Stiles relaxes slightly when she comes over towards him with a huge smile on her face. It seems to be genuine.

"What's your name?" she asks him, looking down at her clipboard.

"Stiles Stilinski." he replies hoarsely, and nodding, she highlights his name in bright blue.

"You can set your stuff down over there, Stiles," she tells him, pointing towards the back corner of the ballroom. "We're going to get started soon. I'm Laura."

Stiles smiles at her tightly, but she seems not to notice because she simply grins back and heads over to the other instructors, a slight sway in her hips that seems to be naturally there.

Pulling out his phone, Stiles goes over to the corner and he sets his bag down a bit aways from everyone elses.

 _'I hate you, love Stiles'_ is a text he sends to Scott, running a hand nervously through his waving hair.

Scott replies almost at once. _'Stop being an infant, love Scott"_ is what he sends back.

 _'Oh, that reminds me- if you somehow forget to mention that Isaac gets pregnant or I come over one day and you've adopted kids, your children are going to see early warfare, not love future Uncle Stiles"_  he types back.

_"Stiles, go dance already for Christ's sakes, super double-stuff love Scott"_

Stiles wants to reply with something totally and ultra-fucking sassy, but at that moment Laura calls up everyone scattered around the ballroom, and huffing out a sigh, Stiles turns his phone down on vibrate and shoves it back into his pocket.

There's only six people there, four of them partnered up together and him and another person are loners together.

Laura beams at them all sunnily, and even Stiles' bad mood slips away a little.

"Thank you all for coming!" she tells them. "My name's Laura, as most of you know now, and this is Erica," she points at a blonde girl who waves. "Allison," a brunette who smiles at them. "And my brother, Derek. We'll be your instructors for the next three months."

Stiles looks at Derek, and just like in the grocery store, his heart all but gives out.

Because Derek is gorgeous, with a faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, and his hair looks absolutely sex mused and his eyes are a mesmerizingly stormy shade of green, and Stiles _really_ needs to look away because he's probably gawping at Derek like a complete and utter moron.

Derek sighs. "Laura, it's not really relevant to tell them all we're related, is it?"

"Yes, it is." Laura insists, and somehow Stiles knew Derek wouldn't argue back. He was obviously the younger sibling. She turns back to them, and smiles again. "Anyways, we'll start with the basics today, and work up from there since this is a twelve week class."

Stiles is kind of scared, but basics sound easy, so he thinks he can manage.

_**xXxXxXx** _

Basics are  _not_ easy.

All it is, really, is counting out the steps and trying to match them with the beat of the music playing, but Stiles was in band for a single year, so he doesn't remember much. He played the trombone, and the only thing fun about it was the name because when you're fresh out of Sex Ed. the trombone is a gateway to an infinite amount of innuendos.

Since Stiles doesn't come to the lessons with a partner like the other two couples did, he's paired up with the stranger who'd been alone, too. His name is Boyd, and he has no problem with dancing with another man, because like Stiles, all he wants to do is finish the class and get on with his life.

Stiles feels bad for him, though, because Stiles really is a horrible dancer and can hardly function in sneakers, let alone socks on a hardwood floor. Boyd seems to be getting the hang of dancing pretty quickly, but Stiles slips around the entire time and falls into Boyd more than once. He also has a knack for stomping on the other man's feet and has lost track of how many times he's apologized in the last half an hour, but every time Boyd just smiles at him like he's incredibly amused by Stiles' lack of grace.

When Stiles stumbles over his own feet for the fourth time and falls hardly onto his ass, Derek looks more fed up than an instructor standing off to the side should. Pulling Boyd back and telling him to go take a break for a few minutes, Derek steps into his place and pulls Stiles off of the ground where he's currently rubbing his eyes and begging for death.

"The issue is that you've got too long of legs and no support for your upper body." Derek tells him, without any formalities. Placing an inhumanly large hand on the small of Stiles' back, Derek pulls them chest to chest and takes Stiles' hand in his other. Stiles gasps and looks up at him with wide Bambi eyes, but Derek doesn't seem to notice. "Count the steps out loudly and subdivide."

"Uh?" Stiles looks absolutely clueless and Derek kind of sympathizes him, just a little.

"Usually people count the steps as 'one, two, three, four' over and over again," the taller man simplifies. "Count the subdivision in between- one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and- and so on."

Stiles takes a moment to regain his wits, his brain still swimming from the proximity of their bodies, before nodding and taking a shaky breath.

Derek leads them, and together they move in a light circle around the dancefloor. Stiles feels a little more supported in Derek's muscular arms and he notices that he isn't stumbling as much with the instructor's help.

As they move, Stiles' feet slowly growing accustomed to the pattern, Derek's deep voice says 'One and two and three and four and,' repeatedly, and the soft growl laying under the words makes Stiles' blood sing  _Ode to Joy_.

Just when he's starting to get the hang of it and not suck terribly, Derek steps back and lets go of him. Stiles feels cold at once.

"Just remember the counting and to keep your back straight. No spaghetti arms," he reminds Stiles, and then he's walking away to get some water and Boyd's back in his place.

"You two looked really good together." Boyd tells him with assurance, but Stiles feels even more bare than he did when first walking into the class now that Derek's walked away, taking his heart with him.

"He looked good." Stiles clarifies, and he looks so upset that Boyd just closes his mouth and leads them off into another attempt at ballroom dancing.

_**xXxXxXx** _

"How'd your first lesson go?" Scott asks him, poking his head into Stiles' bedroom.

"Mmmm." Stiles groans into his pillow, and Scott doesn't say anything else. He just sits on Stiles' bed and rubs his best friend's back as he continues to mumble incoherently into his pillow and slobber on it.

"I know, buddy. Thanks for going through hell and back for me."

Scott swears that he hears Stiles call him an asshat, but he can't be sure.

_**xXxXxXx** _

By the fifth lesson, Stiles isn't as terrible as he was when he started. But he's pretty damn close.

Boyd continues to tell him that he's getting better and better, and slowly Stiles kind of starts to believe him. They do make a good pair, as it turns out, and have even become friends. They're both in college, Boyd for Engineering and Stiles for Law. Stiles calls Boyd Flint Lockwood, and Boyd calls him Judge Judy.

When Boyd's phone rings and he has to step out of the class to take it, Derek steps in place and gives Stiles a once over. The shorter of the two still refuses to invest in dancing clothes, because  _why_ , and is wearing another pair of jeans and a shirt that says 'I pronounce you waffle-ly wedded.' with a cartoon picture of two waffles holding hands and dressed up in a tuxedo and wedding dress. Scott took one look at it that morning and started laughing, but then Isaac remembered they forgot to look into floral arrangements and they didn't laugh again for about two hours.

"I see you're still wearing street clothes." Derek says as Stiles automatically puts his hand on Derek's shoulder and takes his other.

"I see you still look like you just walked out of  _Step Up_ ," Stiles retorts, and for the first time in a month, Stiles sees a smile pulling at the corners of Derek's mouth.

They dance around the ballroom together, Derek occasionally reminding Stiles to subdivide, and they have an easy conversation about Derek's dancing career.

"So," Stiles starts, as he catches himself in time to keep from tripping. "Is this what you do to pay for classes?"

"Pretty much." Derek replies simply. "It pays well enough and Laura helps me out sometimes, too, because she does this full time and gets a lot of money for it. But I don't like it when she does."

"But she's the older sibling, so you let her."

Derek does smile this time, fondly. "Exactly."

When they finish dancing, Boyd's just coming back in front taking his phone call; Stiles doesn't know where the courage comes from, but as Derek's walking away he reaches out and grabs onto Derek's hand to stop him. The other man turns to look at him.

"I uh," Stiles swallows. "I was wondering, if after lessons, if you wanted to, maybe, go get some dinner? I mean, you must work off a lot of your lunch from all the dancing you do and there's this cute little restaurant on the corner of Jefferson and Chestnut, called Harriet's, and they have really good burgers there-"

"Sure," is all Derek says, with another ghost of a smile, and it's enough to cut Stiles off. He squeezes Stiles' hand before continuing to walk away, going over to Allison to see if they need to help someone out some more.

Boyd appears at his side as if by magic as Stiles continues to stare after Derek in disbelief.

"I knew you were going to ask him out, or vice versa."

"Obviously," Stiles says faintly. "You're a scientist, Boyd. You observe."

_**xXxXxXx** _

They're sitting together at Harriet's, Stiles nattering on about one of his classes and how one student is particularly funny in a solemn-ish class, when Scott calls Stiles and the ringtone "Howlin' For You" by The Black Keys echoes through the small table space. He sends Derek an apologetic look before pulling his phone out and turning to the side to talk to Scott quietly.

"What, Scott?"

 _"Well, aren't you sunshine and rainbows?"_ Scott chuckles down the phone.

Stiles bites back a reply about taking the rainbow and shoving it the fuck up Scott's ass, and instead just says, "I'm at dinner, Scott."

_"With who?"_

"Derek."

 _"Oh,"_  Scott chirps and Stiles can hear his friend saying something to Isaac on the other end, causing them both to laugh.  _"I see. I'll just call you back later."_

"You might as well just get it out of the way now."

_"I was going to ask if we should get blue cloth for the silverware or green but I think it can wait."_

"Ask Isaac, Scott." Stiles says. "He's your fiance. And also he's  _a gay man who lives in California_   _with an impeccable fashion sense_ , so there's that."

Scott agrees before hanging up, and though Stiles loves Scott to pieces sometimes he really, really wants to throttle him.

After he hangs up, Stiles sighs and turns back to Derek.

"Sorry about that."

Derek looks amused, somehow, around his straw. "Wedding issues?"

Stiles nods. "My best friend and his boyfriend are getting married in a few months and can't seem to get their shit together. It's funny because they've got everything down but the color coordinations and Isaac is basically Marc Jacobs with colors, and it's all one big mess."

Derek laughs quietly, and it kind of sends Stiles into cardiac arrest a little because usually Derek looks like he wants to wound a small animal and eat it alive.

"I hear you. When my sister got married it was horrible because she wanted me to help her with everything and I have the decoration sense of a blind man."

"And they think you're some kind of floral genius, when you know nothing about flowers at all." Stiles finishes with a laugh, and soon they're chuckling together as though they've been friends for years.

"Exactly." Derek snickers. "Is that why you're taking lessons?"

"Yeah," Stiles nods.

The other smiles at him again. "I think you're a great friend to go through an entirety of dance classes with me and my sister just because your friend wanted you to."

"Yeah, Scott's kind of ridiculous sometimes, but I love him."

Stiles feels warm all over, and sitting there with Derek in the dim lighting of Harriet's, laughing over wedding plans and growing closer, he's never felt more calm and exceedingly electric before in his life.

He sobers slightly, though his grin remains. "No, but they're great together. Isaac and Scott. They told me how they got engaged and I almost melted through the floor like a teenage girl who got candy from a boy on Valentine's Day."

"Let's hear it," Derek says, sitting back in preparation for story time, and soon Stiles is telling Derek how Scott proposed to Isaac when they were sitting on the roof of their apartment building, looking over the city lights and drinking wine. Isaac had made some sort of inside joke that sent them both into hysterics and when they'd calmed down Scott pulled out the ring box and just spilled his entire heart out to San Francisco.

When Stiles finishes, Derek looks soft and content, like he adores true love even though he's as frightening as a drill sergeant.

"I can only hope for what they have some time in my life." Derek says quietly, looking at Stiles over the rim of his cup.

Stiles' heart crumbles a little. "Me too."

_**xXxXxXx** _

"Stiles, you're almost there, I promise- you just have to remember to lock your back up a little more."

Stiles was ready to just split, even though the extra alone time with Derek made him want to skip around in a never ending circle. The class had been touching up their moves, since there was only one more lesson left in their class, and next Tuesday they'd all perform a dance to complete the class and prove their newly acquired dancing skills. And Stiles was still having issues.

He sighs. "I know, Derek, I'm just tired."

Derek nods. "Just one more time, and then we'll take a break."

Stiles grips onto Derek's hand and shoulder tighter than ever, and as his instructor counts 'one, two, one, two, three, four', he prepares himself for the dancing; he's going to get it if it's the last thing he does.

Together, him and Derek sweep across the floor, and instead of looking down at his feet, Derek makes him keep his head up. Their eyes are locked together, and Stiles drowns in the sea color of his eyes as Derek pulls him as close as he can so that they don't fall apart.

Derek says 'Go, Stiles!' when the hardest part of the dance comes up, and somehow, Stiles' determination wins him something because he does the move perfectly. Laughing, Derek pulls him back in and they complete the dance without any mistakes.

"Oh Jesus, I did it," Stiles cries out, jumping up and down. "That's the first time ever, Derek, holy shit!"

Derek is just as excited as he is, and Stiles feels so invincible and on top of the world that he doesn't even care anymore- he jumps into Derek's arms, and Derek catches him easily, though he's a little surprised.

And then Stiles kisses him for all that it's worth; arms snaked around Derek's neck, fingers teasing the hair at the nape of his neck, he cozies right up to Derek and kisses him like he's kissed a million fucking people before, and it feels so right that Derek doesn't even fight back.

He squeezes Stiles thighs in his enormous hands and he kisses the smaller man back, and so much warmth is pooling up in his stomach and making his legs shake that he's afraid he's going to drop Stiles and send them both to the floor.

When they pull away, Stiles looks hilariously stoned.

"Oh, wow." he mumbles.

"Mm." Derek agrees.

They stare at eachother, nose brushing occasionally, but for a second all they do it look.

Then Stiles opens his mouth up and he ruins the softness by bringing up some 80's movie.

"This is kind of like Dirty Dancing, you know," he bubbles, gesturing to them. "I'm Baby, the innocent babe who can't dance and you're Johnny Castle, the sexiest man in the place who can dance like hell and we fell in love through dance lessons. This studio could be Kellerman's!"

"Stiles, you're an idiot." Derek tells him fondly, before kissing him again.

When Stiles asks after many kissing and a lot of moronic words if Derek will sing  _Love Is Strange_ with him while laying sensually on the floor as Stiles sashays around the ballroom, Derek says no.

But he does tell Stiles he can do the lift, which makes Stiles moan idiotically.

_**xXxXxXx** _

When Scott and Isaac's wedding rolls around, Stiles is proud to say that he can dance slightly better than he used to be able to.

"Too bad my old dancing partner's not here." Stiles sighs at their table, looking down into his champagne flute dramatically. "Did you know he can do the lift from Dirty Dancing?"

"Honey," Isaac drawls in Scott's ear. "I love Stiles but if he doesn't figure out how to ask Derek to social events soon I'm going to punch him in the face."

"I know." Scott agrees, and their close proximity brings forth another round of people ringing their bells and prompting the two to kiss each other.

The biggest surprise of the night is when the couples are all called out to the dance floor and Stiles is still sitting at his table, looking genuinely forlorn now that he's one of the only people without a date there to dance with.

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner." someone says behind him, and Stiles nearly falls out of his chair because he whips around so fast.

Standing in front of him, looking unfairly handsome in the golden light of the chandeliers, is Derek in a suit and tie with his hand held out.

"Derek?" Stiles splutters, and Derek's so thankful he's too surprised to point out that he'd made that horrid Dirty Dancing quote.

"Let's dance, Stiles- you're wasting all of that hard earned dancing just sitting around."

Stiles, who is for once stunned silent, lets Derek pull him out of his chair and onto the dance floor, crowded by people in fancy clothing and canoodling couples. Derek pulls him as close as he can and together they begin to waltz around, just like they'd practiced for three months together, and they get so wrapped up in each other that they hardly notice everyone moving out of their way to watch them.

Isaac sighs as he watches Stiles and Derek dance together, laughing quietly and talking as their feet move in time with the music.

"I love you," Isaac tells Scott, and Scott promptly bends him down into a dip and kisses him passionately.

"I love you too."

Danny, Isaac's best man, grins at his best friend while Jackson, his date, pretends to puke in a ficus plant at the edge of the room.

_**xXxXxXx** _

When Isaac throws back a bouquet of flowers for kicks, Stiles catches it and Derek's face floods a brilliant shade of red.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Scott asks Isaac.

"Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> I was planning on writing like a quarter of this and then leaving it for a later date, but uh, it all just poured out at once, you know? So I hope you liked it :3


End file.
